Summary

• Bea Arthur left The Golden Girls due to declining quality and offensive jokes about her character.
• Betty White disagreed with Arthur's decision, as she felt the sitcom ended prematurely.
• The Golden Palace was an unsuccessful Golden Girls spinoff starring White, Rue McLanahan, and Estelle Getty. Arthur appeared in one episode.

The beloved sitcom The Golden Girls ended because one of the leads, Bea Arthur, decided to leave the show. Arthur played Dorothy opposite Betty White's Rose, Rue McClanahan's Blanche, and Estelle Getty's Sophia. Unlike other sitcoms with multiple leads, The Golden Girls was a true ensemble, as each character was pivotal in the show's overall vibe. So, it was a shock when Arthur announced that she was walking away from the project, effectively setting up its end.

For seven seasons, the series went through the main characters' day-to-day lives, highlighting the delights and struggles of ladies their age — something unique and even modern during that era. Each character was charming and memorable in their own right: Dorothy was sarcastic and witty, Rose was a bit slow to catch on but always kind and charming, Blanche was unapologetically sexual, and Sophia was wise and frank, almost to a fault. The Golden Girls is one of the best '80s sitcoms, so why did Bea Arthur leave Golden Girls?

Why Bea Arthur Wanted The Golden Girls To End

Bea Arthur Felt The Quality Of The Stories Was Declining

There were several reasons Bea Arthur left Golden Girls, including feeling like the writers had done everything they could with the four main characters. According to the book Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind The Lanai written by Jim Colucci, who interviewed 20 actors and crew of the show, including Arthur, the actress felt that the quality of the sitcom was starting to slip in its later years. The Golden Girls was known for its solid narratives, and she was simply no longer impressed with how the episodes were panning out.

Arthur wanted to leave the show while it was still resonating with people. The same tell-all also revealed that she was actually offended by how much the sitcom poked fun at Dorothy. Colucci says that while White, Getty, and McClanahan were less fazed by below-the-belt jokes regarding their characters, their co-star ultimately struggled. Perhaps that explains Arthur not participating in a Golden Girls reunion on the 1990s sitcom Ladies Man. The author shared,

“Unfortunately, the things that were said about Dorothy were that she was big and ugly. And that wears on an actress after a while."

Arthur's son, Matthew Saks, backed up the idea that his mother thought that "the ideas had started to run out” in a separate interview with Closer (via Cheat Sheet). But he added that aging was also part of why the actress left The Golden Girls. Arthur was around 70 when the sitcom ended, and it's understandable why she wanted to retire Dorothy Zbornak and slow down. Filming an entire season of a series composed of 25–26 episodes is no easy feat. Arthur died of lung cancer in 2009, two and a half weeks short of her 87th birthday.

All four of The Golden Girls main cast won an Emmy for their role throughout the show's run.

Why Bea Arthur Didn't Star In The Golden Palace

The Rest Of The Golden Girls Cast Didn't Want To Quit

When asked about the opinion that The Golden Girls had run its course, Betty White had a different take. White thought they ended prematurely. Chances are that the rest of the non-Arthur cast felt the same way, considering they stayed behind and starred in the short-lived spinoff, The Golden Palace. The spinoff saw Rose, Blanche, and Sophia buy a hotel in Miami, thinking it would be a profit machine. Only after the sale did they find out that the prior owners fired most of the staff and that they'd need to take on some duties at the business themselves.

Arthur only appeared once as Dorothy in The Golden Palace.

Dorothy received a satisfying exit in The Golden Girls. After years of dealing with her cheating husband, Stan, and struggling to navigate the dating scene, she caught herself in a whirlwind romance, marrying Blanche's uncle, Lucas Hollingsworth. The pair relocated to Atlanta. Arthur only appeared once as Dorothy in The Golden Palace as part of a two-part story concerning her mother, Sophia. Considering her reasons behind quitting The Golden Girls, it's not hard to understand Arthur she wasn't more involved with its spinoff. The Golden Palace wasn't a hit and was canceled after only one season of 24 episodes.

Did Bea Arthur Fall Out With Her Castmates?

Bea Arthur & Betty White Had A Hostile Feud

Betty White will always be ed for her kindness and daring ability to do just about anything for a laugh. That makes it somewhat hard to believe that she and Bea Arthur had a hostile feud during their time on The Golden Girls. Matthew Saks itted that his mother was not a "diplomatic person." He said Arthur thought it was "fun to have somebody to be angry at," and White was her main target (via Country Living). White agreed with this statement as well.

"She was not that fond of me. She found me a pain in the neck sometimes. It was my positive attitude — and that made Bea mad sometimes. Sometimes if I was happy, she'd be furious!"

However, despite the feuding, the women always remained professional while making the hit TV show. In her book, My First Five Husbands...and the Ones Who Got Away, Rue McClanahan wrote, "Things got pretty spicy once in a while, but what mattered most to each of us individually and all of us as a group: the chemistry worked. We were damn funny. And we did it together." Bea Arthur left Golden Girls because it was just her time and likely had little to do with a falling out.

Golden Girls’ Betty White Left Behind A Powerful Legacy

Betty White Broke Barriers For Women On Television

Bea Arthur wasn't the only Golden Girl to leave behind a considerable legacy; her co-star Betty White has had an illustrious career in show business. White earned a Guinness World Record in 2014 and 2018 for "Longest Career Held By An Entertainer (Female)." Some may not know that Betty White was one of the first women to work in front of and behind the camera, the first woman to produce a sitcom (called Life With Elizabeth), and is often called "the First Lady" of television.

After volunteering for the American Women's Voluntary Services during WWII, Betty hit the pavement in Los Angeles looking for work. She got her start in radio in 1949. Her radio career began to take off after earning her radio spot, The Betty White Show. She then moved to television, and that's when the actress started making a name for herself. White became good friends with Lucille Ball since they taped their shows at the same studio. The Golden Girls star garnered more attention when her character, Sue-Ann Nivens, became a series regular on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

After a role in Mama's Family, White made her way to The Golden Girls in the 1980s, and the rest is history. White spoke highly of her co-star, Arthur, but never answered why she left Golden Girls. In a tribute on the Today Show in 2009, White said of Arthur's ing, "I knew it would hurt, I just didn't know it would hurt this much."

What Bea Arthur Did After Leaving Golden Girls

Arthur's Post-Golden Girls Career Didn't Match The Sitcom's Success

One of the reasons why Bea Arthur decided to leave Golden Girls was to pursue other projects. However, between her last appearance in The Golden Girls in 1992 and her death in 2009, she never worked on anything as noteworthy as the classic sitcom. Most of her post-Golden Girls credits are appearances at awards shows and guest appearances on talk shows. She didn't manage to steal the show with her one-off guest appearance in "Water Park," one of episodes. However, her distinctive voice is recognizable as Femputer in "Amazon Women in the Mood" in Futurama.

Other Cases Of Actors Wanting Shows To End

Jim Parsons & Jerry Seinfeld Ended Their Shows

There are several cases of actors who walked away from a successful TV show that continued on without them. However, there are also a few names, like Bea Arthur, whose departure caused the entire series to end. The most famous of these in recent memory is Jim Parsons and The Big Bang Theory. According to most reports, Parsons was ready to stop playing Sheldon Cooper.

His refusal to return caused the network to cancel the show despite the other actors willing to continue on. This caused some hard feelings, as Parsons then went on to narrate Young Sheldon and picked up a paycheck for that, while his Big Bang Theory castmates ended up looking for work. There are also recent rumors that Parsons wanted to bring them back for the Young Sheldon finale, and most refused, thanks to how their hit show ended.

Decades earlier, Jerry Seinfeld made the same decision. His hit sitcom, Seinfeld, was one of the most popular in television history. NBC wanted to keep the show on the air and offered Seinfeld $5 million an episode to return, the biggest deal for any television star, but he rejected the offer. Like Bea Arthur in Golden Girls, he said money wasn't important. "We've all seen a million athletes where you say, 'I wish they didn't do those last two years,'" Seinfeld said, mentioning he wanted to end "from a point of strength." (via New York Times)